


Anything Like Normal

by Seascribe



Category: due South
Genre: Gen, adult siblings, phonecalls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-12
Updated: 2013-01-12
Packaged: 2017-11-25 05:23:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/635554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seascribe/pseuds/Seascribe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maggie calls Benton up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anything Like Normal

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Luzula](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luzula/gifts).



> Written for More Joy Day 2013.

Maggie hesitates before she picks up the phone. Sure, Benton had said to call, but she doesn't need advice on a case or anything like that. She just wants to talk to him. Wants to get to know this older brother that she's heard so much about, but who is still really just a stranger to her. Maggie has no idea what she's going to say, but she picks up the phone and punches in the number, fast, before she loses her nerve.

"Canadian Consulate, Constable Benton Fraser speaking." 

"Benton! It's Maggie. How are you?"

He seems pleased to hear from her, and to her surprise, it really isn't awkward at all. She asks after Ray, and listens with interest to the story of their latest case. There isn't much to share on her end; she's still on desk-duty while the implications of her time in Chicago are being worked out. 

"Dad dropped by, a couple of days ago," she says. "He's got terrible timing; my commanding officer probably thought I was losing my mind!" 

"Welcome to the family," Benton says with a laugh. 

Family, for Maggie, still means her mum. Casey too, although that hurts. She wonders if it would be any easier adjusting to suddenly having an unexpected father and brother if they were anything like normal. 

"Maggie? Is everything all right?" 

"Oh, yeah, sure," Maggie says. "Sure. I was just thinking, about family, you know. About my mum."

"I'd like to hear more about her," Benton says. "She sounds like a truly remarkable woman." 

She hadn't ever seemed that way to Maggie--she was just Mum--but looking back now, Maggie can see that it's true. And for Benton, who probably has only the barest memories of his own mother, Ellen Stern must seem almost like something out of a faerietale.

So Maggie tells him about her mum, about learning to track and drive a dogsled, about getting by, just the two of them. Benton listens attentively, and Maggie wonders if he's trying to imagine himself into her stories, thinking about how things would've been if he'd grown up with a mother and a sister. 

"You should come up and visit," Maggie tells him, when she realises they've been talking for over an hour. "I mean it. After the trial is over, come and stay a couple of weeks." She grins. "You can help me re-tar the roof of my trailer." 

"It would be my pleasure," Benton says, and Maggie can tell that he's grinning too.


End file.
